11 Things That Are Driving Me Nuts: PPC Edition

Blogging is all about being topical and relevant. It is an open platform that is part news and part opinion. Well, considering I can think of nothing that constitutes “hard news” today… that means this post is going to skew towards opinion. But hey, it’s still topical!

Without further ado, here are 11 things that are really driving me nuts in the world of PPC and internet marketing.

Google releases a new version of AdWords Editor with promises of supporting upgraded Sitelinks. And there was much rejoicing… yay. Wait, what’s this? Still no support for Call Extensions or Expanded Site Links!!! No wonder I’m going gray already. (and more little things: why isn’t Total Conv. Value included in data sets? Why aren’t labels supported in AWE for bulk management?)

Twitter Ads rock. Seriously, they do. But OH MY GOD they still have a long way to go in creating a usable web interface. Better yet, give us a desktop tool. (you can replace Twitter with LinkedIN in this instance and it would still be true)

Conversion Optimizer (and Flexible Bids for that matter) and I are in a love/hate relationship. Works great sometimes. Sucks otherwise. And I’d love the ability to change up bid types within a campaign. Just sayin’.

Why do people spam #ppcchat? Are you 12? This persistent buffoonery forces me to use a desktop tool like TweetDeck so I can block that crap (blackhat anyone?).

More Google ranting. Why did they have to go and make the YouTube video ad interface so tedious to manage? And why no Editor support? Why keep all of the reporting and data analysis separate? #annoyed (Oh, hashtags aren’t relevant in a blog post? I don’t care!)

Day parting is such an underrated feature of Google AdWords and Bing Ads. When my alarm goes off to activate or pause a Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIN ads campaign, I cry like a baby. Big, fat juicy tears.

Speaking of Bing… didn’t think I was going to leave that out, did you? Why does Bing Ads Editor take 4 hours to load each new account I want to manage? I promise, my laptop kicks ass and isn’t the problem. Didn’t Microsoft invent SQL databases AND Desktop Editor? Words escape me.

Google. Importing Analytics Goals as AdWords Conversions. It would be genius if it didn’t suck so bad. Up to 48 hours to register a goal completion as a conversion? Come on!!!

Google. Agency and Vertical support teams. The constant rep rotation is killer. And I miss the days of being able to ask these reps actual account related questions. If I hear “call 866-Google2” one more time…

Who designed DoubleClick for Advertisers? I’ll place my bet on a cave man. I’m not a programmer or a UX designer, but man oh man does that interface suck. It teases you with visual cues stolen from AdWords then smacks you in the face with weird logic and endless steps to simple tasks.

I love that YouTube is a part of the GDN. Works pretty well for a lot of my clients. But have you tried analyzing a Placement Performance Report for a YouTube placement campaign? Why can’t Google give us SOMETHING to bite on with that information? A link to a video X1000+ does not efficient campaign management make.

Bonus! Thanks to a Facebook rant by my friend Haukur (Icelandic ppc badass), I must add Google’s new Keyword Planner. Most days I just roll with it. Yesterday me and Keyword Planner spent some quality time together. Color me annoyed. What was so wrong with the old keyword tool?

Bonus 2! Call Extensions in AdWords are great. Advertisers who place importance on phone calls love it. But AdWords just barely supports it – like they do with so many other features. I can see calls at the ad group and campaign levels, but not keyword, search query or ad levels?!?!?!? Throwing us the “mobile click-to-call” bone is really more of a slap in the face. Thanks, Google.

Ok, I’m done. I’ll shut up now. And please accept my apologies. Anyone that knows me will tell you I’m not one for complaining. Today was just an exception…

Comments (11)

For Real: I concur with #7, I wish Bing would just subcontract their editor to Google for development, maybe then we would get a Mac client too 😉

@gravymatt’s bonuses
1) Can anyone tell me why Bing Ads doesn’t have a Conver Rate column? Am I missing the bigger picture? I know it is in the downloadable report but it just isn’t in the web UX or editor?!

@Tamsin – thanks for the tip on ScreamingFrog! As for labels – you are exactly right. Labels are in AdWords web interface but not AdWords Editor. Editor has comments, but they don’t go in AdWords web. Where’s the logic in that!

@Haukur – Given the vast amount of data that is passed between AdWords and Editor, I find it hard to believe that adding 1 extra column with text-based labels is all that hard. Just doesn’t make sense. If it is a joke, nobody is laughing.

5. Yes, why are the campaigns for video separate? In addition, there’s no way to see conversions from those ads in Google Analytics (GA) as far as I can see. Had to write a blog post for a workaround for this: http://goo.gl/y7k0Cm

7. So True! I can download all my account in Adwords Editor (AWE) before one small account downloads in Bing Ads desktop.

8. True! But at least you can do it now.

9. Agreed. But I have to admit alot of the really tough questions I through at Google Adwords tech support, they really know their stuff.

10. Yes, so close, yet so far ; )

13. SO true! I wish their call tracking was true call tracking, being able to use not just a generic 800 Google number but a local number, with conversion tracking down to the keyword level. They can track conversions as at least a certain time on the phone, which is great. But keyword level tracking would be the gold standard, just like regular conversion tracking.

14. Please allow us to delete old Remarketing audiences from the Shared Audiences.

15. (A little off topic) Please upgrade Google Tag Manager so we can track events without having to touch the code on the site, including the data layer.